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LIBERIA'S NEXT FRIEND. 

The Annual Discourse 



DELIVERED AT THE 



SIXTY-NINTH ;iNNU;iL MEETING 



OF THE 



jlMERIGAN C0L0NIZ>T10t(^ SOCIETY, 



HELD IN 



FOUNDRY M. E. CHURCH, WASHINGTON, D- C 
Sunday Evening, Jan'y 17. 1886, 

BY REV. B. SUNDERLAND, D, D. 



Published by j^e<^uest of the ^ociett. 



washington city, 
Colonization Building, 450 Penn.sylvania Avenue. 

1886. 



LIBERIA'S NEXT FRIEND. 

The Annual Discourse 



DELIVERED AT THE 



OF THE 



SIXTY-NINTH /INNU/IL MEETING 

/ 

jmui CoLONiz/iTiof[ Society, 



HELD IN 



FOUNDRY M.E. CHURCH. WASHINGTON, D- C 
Sunday Evening, Jan'y 17, 1886, 

2^' BY REV. B. SUNDERLAND, D. D. 



Published by J^EquEST of the 3ocietv. 



washington city. 
Colonization Building, 450 Pennsylvania Avenue. 

1886. 






DISCOURSE. 



Africa! Liberia! What hardship and heroism in our time they 
represent. The dark Continent ! The infant Republic ! What mem- 
ories of the past ! What hopes of the future ! 

Providence turns heavy doors on the smallest hinges. No romance 
of fiction can equal the wonders of the way in which a divine ^//r/^;.y^ 
threads its course through all the maze of human history. From the 
first generations the trend of the human race has been turned hither 
and thither by things in themselves lighter than a feather. 

God first partitioned the land and water and settled the geologic 
and climatic conditions and then divided the nations to their several 
estates-- The third part of the Eastern hemisphere, according ta 
tradition, fell to the sons of Ham in whose family there was an an- 
cient curse. 

But in the economy of Heaven there is no curse without a bless- 
ing — and often the blessing blossoms from the curse ! Africa became 
the asylum of the two greatest figures in the annals of time. 

A tear-drop on the cheek of a babe in a reed basket among the 
rushes of the Nile gave rise to the fortunes of a people out of whom 
came at last the world's Messiah ! 

When Christ was born, his infancy, like that of Moses, was shel- 
tered in the land of Egypt. That was the only gate of ingress or 
egress which remained unshut round a coast of 16,000 miles. The 
seal of the continent like that of its great pyramid, was left unbroken 
for centuries. 

About 400 years ago, the Portuguese, then the greatest sailors, 
began to pry around it. Explorations followed. The slave trade, early 
existing, was vastly augmented, by the discovery of America. Church 
and State, monarchy and merchandise, joined hands to make it re- 
spectable. For the next three centuries European rapacity tore from 
theii' native soil the children of Africa and thrust them on the mar- 
kets of the world. 

One day in 1620 a Dutch ship came up the [ames river and 
landed the first score of Negro slaves at Jamestown, Virginia. That 
was the beginning of African slavery in this country, leadmg to long 
bondage, to civil war and final emancipation. It is estimated that 
from 1680 to 1786 England, chiefly, supplied to this country and the 
West Indies 2,130,000 Neero slaves. 



"But there is a soul of good in things evil." One of the most 
conspicuous uses of this country thus far, was to bring these abject 
Pagans into contact with our modern civilization and to pack multi- 
tudes of them into the Christian church. 

About the time of the Revolution, an idea entered the mind of 
a man in New England that the return of the Negro to the land of 
his fathers, would be in order. It caught fire and kindled in other 
minds in various forms in other parts of the country. Years went on 
and Paul CufTee, an Africo-Indian, born at New Bedford, rising from 
poverty and obscurity, to command money and a ship of his own, 
thought it was time to put this idea in practice. He carried back to 
Africa in his own vessel 40 of his people costing him the sum of $4,- 
000. This was in 1815. He seems to have been the first practical 
colonizationist. 

The next year he returned to this country and died. A few 
months after, the American Colonization Society was born. 

Seventy years are gone and Liberia, as she stands to-day, is the 
result. The Society has measured the alloted span of a human life 
and it remains now to be seen whether it is moribund or whether 
like the law-giver of Israel, its "eye is not dim nor its natural force 
abated." 

To the intimate friends of Liberia her story is an oft-told tale. 
Oreat speakers at the annual meetings of the American Colonization 
Society at Washington and at other times and places have pleaded 
the cause of African colonization. The press has created a literature 
on the subject of more or less permanent character and value. We 
have had the narrative, the sentiment, the antiquity, the poetry, the 
heroism, the sacrifice, the struggle, set before us, copiously, eloquent- 
ly, and with strong conviction. 

The semi-Centennial of the Society was observed in 1867 and 
marked an epoch in its history. The volume of the proceedings of 
that year is accessible to those who would be informed. In addition 
to the addresses and discourses on that occasion, the book contains 
a copy of the Liberian Declaration of Independence, the full text of 
the Constitution of the new Republic, a description of its flag and 
seal, the inaugural address of the first Presiient of Liberia — Hon. J, 
J. Roberts, the annual message of President Warner in 1866, together 
with a list of all the agents and government officials who have acted 
through and for the American Colonization Society — a table of the 
emigrants and of the cost of colonization to that date, and lastly the 
honored names of the original members of the Society. 

From these and from very many other documents, one great 
fact stands out clearly to our view and that is that the whole civilized 



and Christian world recognizes the relation of the Government of the 
United States to that distant infant African Republic as "her next 
friend." 

Thoughtful and philanthropic men have in former times discuss- 
ed and urged the emancipation of the enslaved blacks, and their re- 
moval to the father-land. Upon the broadest basis it has been shown 
that the people of this country have obligations on this subject of the 
most serious and controlling character, and when we declare that the 
United States is in a large historic sense the founder and necessary 
patron of the Liberian Republic, we assert only what may be known 
and read o{ all men. 

The contests and suspicions to which the American Colonization 
Society was subjected in the period prior to 1861, have largely passed 
away. Emancipation came through a sea of blood, and in the last 25 
years "the logic of events" has justified the wisdom of our work and 
vindicated for all time the name and character of this now venerable 
organization. 

The imperial monarch of Spain, Charles V, issued a Royal li- 
cense for the importation of African slaves into his American pos- 
sessions. This was in the year of grace, 1516, just 300 years before 
the birch of the American Colonization Society, and it opened wide 
the gates of the slave trade from the western coast of Africa, the 
horrors of "the middle passage" and all the pains of Christian cruelty. 
But Alfonso, the last king on the Spanish throne, whose Roval 
obsequies were chronicled but the other day, under date of February 
nth, 1882, sent the following epistle to Gardner, the then President 
of Liberia: 

"Great and good Friend: 

Desiring to give you a public testimony of my Royal appreciation 
" and my particular esteem, I have had special pleasure in nominating you 
" Knight of the Grand Cross of the Royal Order of Isabel the Catholic. I am 
" pleased by this action also to furnish new proof of the desire which animates 
" me to strengthen more and more the friendly relations which happily exist 
" between Spain and the Republic of Liberia, and with this motive, I repeat 
" to you the assurance of the affection which I entertain towards you, and 
" with which. Great and Good Friend, I am 

Your Great and Good Friend, 

Alfonso." 
It is a little stilted and fulsome after the manner of kings, but it 
sounds cheerily beside the ruthless decree of Charles V. 

No man can trace the footsteps of Providence in these latter 
days without being constantly surprised at the unexpected and mar- 
velous turn of things. The world is more alive to-day than ever— as 
we discover through constantly accumulating official reports, diplo- 
matic papers, missionary, scientific, exploring, educational and com- 



mercial accounts, which are daily concentrating a flood of light upon 
Africans and Africa. The change on the face of the world— even du- 
ring the existence of the American Colonization Society, invests its 
work with a new and transcendant interest. Here at home a race 
of slaves have been clothed with the franchise of free men and are 
rapidly being educated in the spirit of our civil and religious institu- 
tions, and at this moment seven millions of people of African blood 
stand confronted wi»^h \.\\^ future, and like Saul of Tarsus in the way 
to Damascus — are compelled to ask — "Lord what wilt Thou have me 
to do?" 

True, there is a divided opinion among them. We have no wish 
to conceal the facts. There are many men in this country with Af- 
rican blood in their veins who rage at the faintest hint of what they 
are pleased to term expatriation. They have no special love for this 
venerable Society. To the prayer of Father Snowden — a colored 
preachei' of Boston many years ago, ihey would shout a loud 
" Amen !" 

"Oh, Lord, we pray Thee that that seven-headed and ten-horned monster, 
the Colonization .Society, may be smitten through and through with the fiery darts 
of truth, and tormented as the whale between the sword-fish and the thrasher." 

Yet to-day, half a million of Father Snowden's people are seek- 
ing light from the "ten-horned monster" and turning a wistful gaze 
on the far-oflf fatherland. 

The Society has done nothing to bring about this state of things. 
The only activity in this direction has been information imparted 
at the request of the Negroes. 

But it is said they are all free born now — what more do they 
want.'' Why should thev go to Africa? Is not Anierica good enough 
for the colored people ? 

.'\nswers to these questions are piled up month after month on the 
table of the Executive Committee of the Society, and we are forced to 
go over and over them and then lay them aside for want of means to 
respond effectively and ' thus the years are passing away with too little 
done. They come from all quarters — as well from New England as 
from Texas ; from New York as from Alabama — and they want to 
go. Take a specimen case. 

The Rev. Mr. Brockenton, pastor of a Baptist church of more 
than 1,000 members, in Darlington, S. C, evidently a prominent man 
in his Church, in his State and county and town, in a letter 
of December 12th, 1884, says, that he, with his family and 
a large company of his people, wishes to go to Afiica for the follow- 
ing reasons: 

I. Because I want to continue my good work for the Master. 



2. Because I think my Christian influence is more needed there than 
here. 3. Because the harvest in Africa is great, but the laborers are 
few. 4. Because my children are trained teachers or mechanics and 
as such can assist in building up our father-land. 5. Because my 
condition as a 7na7i will be better established ind my work as a minis- 
ter better appreciated. 

Sound and sensible reasons — reasons which are almost daily re- 
iterated by the colored people who are waking up to the question of 
their future duty and condition. 

President Roberts in a public discourse on his last visit to this 
country said : " I have no disposition to urge my colored brethren to 
leave the country, but as for me I could not live in the United States." 
Professor Freeman of Liberia College while on a visit a few years ago 
at Pittsburgh, Pa., where he had formerly spent 12 years as a teacher 
in a college for the education of colored students, was offered strong 
inducements to remain and resume his former position m that insti- 
tution, but he refused. The Trustees then asked. " What will you 
stay for, Freeman ? " His reply was in substance this : " I will stay, 
gentlemen, for what either of you white men would consent to be- 
come a Negro for, and live in Pennsylvania and transmit his social 
status to his children." 

But this is not all. Every settlement in Liberia is calling for pop- 
ulation from the United States. The Honorable Z. B. Roberts, one of 
the Justices of the Supreme Court writes as follows: " Sinoe county 
was planted by your philanthropy in common with the other por- 
tions of Liberia. It is heavily timbered, has a fertile soil, a bar for 
shipping at all seasons of the year and a river abounding in fish includ- 
ing superior oysters. Our evergreen palm-trees lift up their tower- 
ing heads, waving majestically their glossy limbs and broad leaves, 
their trunks filled with crimson fruit for home use and for exporta- 
tion. There is room here for Africa's sons in America to enjoy with 
us this God-given land. Emigrants are needed — those that will re- 
solve, in coming, to labor for the elevation of themselves, their child- 
ren and their race. Men whose bosoms swell with a deep love of lib- 
erty, mechanics, farmers miners and teachers are greatly desired !" 

Liberia is waiting to receive them. The cry is louder than ever. 
The basis of feeling is fast changing among the colored people, and 
where before they had distrust of the motive and influence of Coloniz- 
ation, they now begin to act from higher incentives and grander 
considerations. The light of this venerable Society is beginning to be 
comprehended in quarters where it was so long excluded. Emigra- 
tion by Africans, of Africans and for Africans is coming to be the pi- 
broch of thousands who would hail to-day the means of exodus from 



8 

America. It is not simply the selfish gain of which they dream, but 
an inspiration of Heaven which, like a mighty wind, is filling heart and 
mind and soul and sense to render aid to the children of the mighty 
land of Ham. 

T. McCants Stewart, one of the young men sent out some two 
years since to be a professor in the College of Liberia, after a few 
months sojourn, has returned and published a book in which, while 
avowing himself to be " nota colonizationist " he nevertheless pre- 
sents a most powerful argument for emigration. The very matters he 
exhibits to show the weakness of Liberia, are to us reasons trumpet- 
tongued why we should at once pour in a tide of emigration upon her 
waste places — why we should lose no time in " strengthening the 
things that remain." 

Would he have emigration cease ? Why, one-half the human 
race has been in a state of emigration since Abram left Urr of the 
Chaldees ! Emigration to America begun so soon as the Continent 
was discovered and it has not ceased to this hour. The first necessi- 
ty of a State is men. Napoleon when asked " What France most 
needed" .'' replied, " Mothers ! " 

Meanwhile the eyes of Europe are gloating on African possessions 
as they never did before. In almost every European capital or- 
ganizations exist encouraged by kings and parliaments or by power, 
ful private wealth which, from one motive or another, are centering 
their energies upon dififerent portions of the Negro Continent. The 
great Powers are already dividing their protectorates and planting 
their standards over the older or newer colonies which their enter- 
prise has established. It is a scramble for territory, for markets for the 
over-production and manufactures of the leading nations of the world, 
for commercial adventure, and in part also for scientific research, 
along with which the Church must toil for the extension of Christian- 
ity. 

And when, in a material point of view, we consider that Africa 
controls the diamond market of the world, that it yields vast quanti- 
ties of gold, that its palm oil is nowhere else to be found, can we 
wonder that " the mammon of unrighteousness " is looking at it with 
the eyes of a boa constrictor } 

And latest and most surprising of all looms up " the Free State 
of the Congo." 

Here is another marvellous thread of Providence. Many years 
ago a man begins to publish in the city of New York an insignificant 
newspaper. Years pass on, the journal grows in size and sinew. A waif 
floating on the drifting tide of humanity, is put on the staff of the 
newspaper and becomes a war correspondent. The founder of the 



9 

journal dies. His son, more aspiring than the father, looks round for 
new fields of enterprise. Just then a successor of Mungo Park, an 
illustrious African explorer, is lost and the world wonders if he is 
dead. An English journal dreams of what might be done. A 
scheme to find him enters the brain of the ambitous journalist, and 
the stray waif, now a sturdy henchman of the Press, is put in charge 
of the distant search. Livingstone is found and Stanley grows fa- 
mous in a day ! 

He went upon a second search, Livingstone died and his 
mantle fell upon Stanley. He explored the Congo and was 
feted in England and at the Continental Courts. The effort fiuited 
in the formation of the •' International African Association," and the 
"Free State of the Congo," of which Leopold of Belgium is the head and 
Stanley the prime-minister. The flag of,the "New Stale" is a field 
of blue with a golden star. It already floats over twenty-two prosper- 
ous settlements, one thousand miles of unobstructed river navigation 
and a productive contiguous area of 6 millions of square miles, sup- 
porting a population of 50 millions of natives. What novel ever had 
a page to surpass it ? 

Following this, it is but about a year since that Germany called a 
vast Conference at Berlin, Bismarck presiding, at which explorers, di- 
plomats and ministers representing all there is of Europe, Turkey 
and the United States, assisted. Treaties weie formed and conditions 
established among the great Powers vitally affecting Africa and its 
people, but they, were not at all consulted. 07/r representatives were 
present by direction of our Government and doubtless from the most 
praise-worthy motives, and they finally become signatories to the 
work of the Conference. What they did there was large of purpose 
abounding in philanthropic zeal. But it is the first time in our 
history when such a thing was ever done. We are a singular people. 
The nations are coming to know us better, and while in diplomacy 
we are as exclusive as China itself.we ought not to be at all squeam- 
ish when standing as "the next friend " to the little sister on the 
African coast, it is high time for the people of this country to wake 
up to the designs of European Powers. 

What is the meaning of it all ? Does Japheth, no longer satisfied 
with his portion of the world, intend to supplant and despoil his 
brother Ham? Is the African slave trade to be followed by subjuga- 
tion on the soil and a provincial policy as oppressive as the feudalism 
of the middle ages ? Will the pale face encroach on the black man in 
Africa as he does on the red man in America — leaving extermina- 
tion to the weaker, and a d/ac/:, black record to the stronger which no 
tears of repentance can wash away } Is Africa after all not to be 
ruled by Africans } Is it to be wrenched away from its own sons — to 



become only a European dependency, without autonomy or self-ex- 
istence? 

The answer which the American Colonization Society makes to 
these questions is " Liberia I " — A free Christian Republic already 
planted in one of the fairest regions of the African Continent — the 
dangers and difficulties of the begmning overcome, the fears of friends 
and the jeers of foes passing away — the light of Christian civilization 
shining there in the midst of Pagan daikress. 

^ This is the answer of the initiatory steps and stages of that en" 
terprize, and of the noble advocates, the self-denying agents and the 
generous benfactors of Liberia. It is'the answer ot the hrst emigrants 
and emphatically of Elijah Johnson a principal man among them, and 
whose son is now the President of that Republic. As their 
designs became known they awakened the opposition of the native 
tribes and at a moment of great peril from their assaults, the officers 
of a vessel appearing there ofiered to assist the colonists against their 
assailants on condition that they should be granted ten feet square 
of ground on which to plant the English flag. " No sirs ! " cried the 
old man, " Not an inch. I have long sought a free home for me and 
mine, I have found it here at last, if we allow you to hoist that flag 
upon our soil, it will be harder for us to pull it down than it will be 
to fight the natives ! " 

What did Washington and Lincoln ever say more heroic ? 
Aye, and we could trace this answer through all the growth of 
that colony under the fostering care of our Society — in its declaration 
of Independence in 1847, in its Constitution and Republican form of 
government, in its beautiful situation, in the variety and value of its 
natural products, in the extention of its public domain, in its agricul- 
tural and commercial development, in the establishment of education 
and the Christian religion, in its remarkable state of society consider- 
ing all the conditions by which it has been so deeply affected, in its 
great influence upon the suppression of the slave-trade and the up- 
lifting of the native tribes, and finally in the prospect of its future 
position as the morning-star of African regeneration. 

To the schemes of Europe lor the possession and control of 
Africa, we oppose this infant Government which has already demon- 
strated the two cardinal facts of African capability and African des- 
tiny — that is to say — that Negroes are equal to the highest known 
form of self-government — advancing their institutions by peaceful 
methods and bloodless coiitests. 

What, then, is the objection to Liberia. Why should she not 
have free course } Why should her voice be hushed in the conclave 
of the nations } 



1st. It is styled the land of Negroes — an inferior race — with the 
■old family curse upon them — the sons of Ham. It is said that mod- 
ern evolution has proved "the survival of the fittest" which must 
ultimately drive them to the wall. 

Our answer is that all this is superficial dogma — not to be cured 
by sending to Liberia a refined and hyper-educated class, too proud 
or too indolent to take up the task of improvement, and too haughty 
to mingle with the common people of that country. We say also 
that if the family curse ever followed that people, it is now high time 
to maintain that it should be exhausted — to maintain that -'Ethio- 
opia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God." And is it not like- 
wise clear that up to this date "the survival of the fittest" in Africa 
means the survival oi Africans, and that it will take a long time for 
evolution to drive two hundred millions of them to the wall ? It is 
equally illusive in th^; light of history, to talk of "inferior races," 
while the fact is that on a broad scale there are no inferior races, 
that is no races incapable of becoming dominant in the world through 
the development of intrinsic qualities. We must remember that an 
African civilization is one of the oldest of which we know, standing 
in the very dawn of history. 

2. But then theie is the .African fever; who is going to encoun- 
ter that for the sake of Liberia- for the sake of Africa } We have no 
interest in them. Let them take care of themselves ! 

Is it not strange that men should be so inveterately hostile to 
the interest of Christian civilization in a quarter of the globe where 
others, for sordid gain, are willing to expose themselves to every haz- 
zard ! We cannot comprehend the stolidity which objects to all ex- 
ertions from the highest motives and in the same breath smiles upon 
efTorts which arise alone from mercenary considerations. Who ever 
heard of physical danger extinguishing the spirit of adventure."* 
In 1849 the Isthmus was white with the bones of men rushing for 
gold into California. But acclimation was possible to the miners, 
and so the resources of that great coast are being developed. It re- 
mains to be seen whether as a rule acclimation is possible to the 
white man in Africa. Up to this date the climate is deadly--the 
fever fatal to the Caucasian race. Nobody knows much about it save 
the single fact that it spares the natives who are usually robust and 
long lived, with very few diseases; but it furiously attacks white 
strangt rs and with rare exceptions never lets up on them, but either 
kills them or drives them out. It is not so however with the foreign 
born Negroes, who after the first experience and acclimation, find no 
further trouble. Now what is the meaning of this? If we heard a 
voice from heaven, could it speak plainer the will of Him who "di- 



vided the nations? ' We seem to hear Him saying: "This is why the 
sons of Ham are black. I have fitted them for the equatorial region 
and have fixed the climate so that no white race can flourish there. 
Beware then, ye sons of Japheth. Covet not the land of the Negroes, 
If you approach those shores for conquest, I have set my tiger in the 
lowlands, lie will spring upon and kill you !" That we take it is 
the mission of the African fever. It is the watch dog of Liberia ! No 
wonder the burglars from abroad dislike it— and because they dis- 
like it, we think it is where it ought to be, and doing what it ought 
to do. 

3. There are evil tidings of Liberia brought by a Naval officer 
charging that domestic slavery exists snd rosa in that Republic; that 
the citizens secretly encourage it, in some cases buying and working 
slaves from the native tribes. Some very lofty falsehood is no doubt 
prevalent. The calumny is refuted by the Constitution and laws of 
the Republic. A system of apprenticeship does prevail, but the courts 
severely punish the man who is found dabbling in the loathsome 
slave customs of the savage tribes, and that slavery exists in Liberia 
has been so repeatedly and emphatically denied by numerous most 
competent and credible witnesses, that it becomes a mere question 
of personal veracity, and when the truth of the case comes to light 
we have no fear that Liberia will be dishonored. As well might we 
say because a few old slaves — the legacy of a former generation — still 
linger in our Indian tribes, or because Coolies from China have been 
smuggled into the country, that slavery exists in the United States, 
and that this Government should be abolished as a national nuisance. 

4. From a similar source it has been objected that Liberia to- 
day is going backward, that the second and third generations are re- 
lapsing, that there is in the country, and especially in the towns, 
streets and buildings, an air of retrogression, that the people lack fore- 
sight and enterprise, that everything shows them to be a childish 
race, not worth the pains which Christian philanthropy has expended 
upon them. In accepting strictures like these, great caution is neces- 
sary. No lies are so dangerous as those which are false in the blade 
and true in the handle. According to the latest reports from Liberia, 
the business of agriculture and trade is extending with gratifying re- 
sults, and the value of the annual exports is growing larger year by 
year. This single fact is a sufficient answer to the libel of retrogres- 
sion. Nobody pretends that perfection has been reached in Liberia. 
Nobody pretends that human nature there any more thin elsewhere 
has Eden innocence and virtue. All we claim is that taking every- 
thing into consideration, Liberia is a success and will be more and 
more a success in the future. All beginnings are small, all great 



13 

things are born of trouble, why should Liberia be an exception? Sup_ 
pose some foreign naval officer should land at Alexandria, hurry 
rapidly through the town, move on to Richmond and down to Nor- 
folk in the same superficial way, and then hasten home and file a 
report in the navy department that America is on the wane, that the 
people are thriftless and all looks dilapidated; what should we think 
of the value of such testimony ? 

Then put over against this what has been already accomplished, 
the obstacles surmounted, the difficulties removed, the success at- 
tained, and have we not a guaranty for the future in the very fact of 
the existence of the Republic as it is at the present moment ? It is 
not an easy task to wipe out a people that against such odds from 
the beginning has made such headway and are stronger to-day than 
ever. It took our "old thirteen colonies" 150 years to prepare for 
the assertion of "'Independence." It was only about a score of years 
that saw Liberia advancing from nothingness to take her place in the 
ranks of sovereign independent States. We think we have here a 
living germ of nationality destined to survive every vicissitude and 
become the seed-corn and normal principle of free government and 
Christian civilization for all Africa. 

5. Adverse criticism might fall upon Liberian diplomacy in the 
settlement of some great questions vitally affecting the fortunes of 
the Republic. But allowance must be made from the circumstance 
that a pigmy is brought to face a giant in arbitrament. The final 
settlement of the North-west boundary of the Republic with all its 
antecedents is a chapter of public dishonor from which we turn away 
with a sense of nausea. Talk of diplomacy between the wolf and the 
lamb ! What could Liberia do but submit while the Government of 
the United States, acknowledged by all the world as "the next friend" 
of Liberia, after having said that it would regard any injustice done 
to her "with positive disfavor," was obliged to stand calmly by and 
to see its umpire snubbed, the arbitration broken off, and forty miles 
of sea-coast coolly usurped by England and never say a word ! 

6. Exception might be taken to the fiscal (management 
of the Republic. It cannot be maintained that any giant ge- 
nius of finance has yet come to the front among the Liber- 
ans, and it must be confessed that a cloud of debt hangs over them 
at this moment which is by no means flattering to their self-consider- 
ation. Still, even though upon specious pretexts, they have been 
despoiled ot 40 miles of sea-coast, their credit has 'not sunken low- 
er than that of this country in the days of Washington. Nor has 
their currency depreciated beneath the old continental paper which 
circulated so low that a hatful of it would scarcely purchase a square 



14 

meal for a hearty hungry man. All nations have been in debt. Look 
at the annual budgets of the great Powers to-day. Liberia is not 
singular in her struggle with the financial difficulties in the first forty 
years of her national existence. We confidently hope that in her pres- 
ent emergency, some Hamilton or Robert Morris may rise to con- 
duct her in safety throagh the storm. 

7. It has been intimated that the Liberians are frivolous, too 
fond of dress and show. Considering the plain taste and demure cos- 
tume of the world's people elsewhere — say for example among '• thC" 
higher fashionables " of American cities, what an aw/u/ thing this is! 
Seriously however, the reliable testimony is that the customs, habits 
and houses of the Liberians will compare favorably with those of the 
same class here at home. There are relatively no more drones, dudes 
or coquettes in the Liberian towns than in the great towns of 
England or America. The observation is too trivial for further com- 
ment, 

8. There remains another and more recent report which involves 
alike the work of this Society and the character of the people in Li- 
beria. It is now insisted to the detriment of our cause that the class 
of emigrants sent out from this country to populate "the waste 
places" there is of an inferior character, and that any further efifort to 
supply Liberia with colored people from America is inexpedient and 

unwise. 

We answer this by saying that even if, the charge were strictly 
true it is no argument against colonization, and no real friend of Af_ 
rica will use it. On the other hand it ought properly to become a 
powerful incentive to greater carefulness and exertion. 

Of course it could scarcely be otherwise than that out of the 
whole body of emigrants which this Society has sent there during the 
last sixty years some may have proved to be bad material. The best 
human judgment and foresight cannot provide against every conting- 
ency, and certainly not in a case like this when culling and selecting 
individuals is impracticable, when emigrants have to he sent in fam- 
ilies, bands, and companies. But taking togetherjthe whole mass of 
the emigrants the charge is libelous and cruel. It is an unjust reflec- 
tion on the whole work of this Society and should be frowned down by 
every man who has any praper knowledge of the history and present 
stahts of Liberia. It stands there to-day a grand germinal pomt for 
all manner of progress and improvement, and for the spread of civil 
and religious institutions over the whole Continent. With such a 
position and prospect is it possible for Liberia to go backward, or for 
this Society to cease its efforts, or for this Government to be deaf to- 
the trumpet-call for help in the present juncture.' 



15 

Liberia has on her south-eastern border a magnificent domain 
between the Cavalla and San Pedro rivers, the title to which is 
questioned by England, as though !-he were preparing on some plaus- 
ible pretext — perhaps the maturing loan of a million dollars,--to take 
up another 40 miles of the coast line of the Republic. To prevent 
this and other hostile contingencies, we need to pour into that quar- 
ter of Liberia in the next two years ten thousand of the choicest Afri- 
cans we have. We cannot do this by the tardy and inadequate aid of 
private beneficence. The only feasible way is by an appropriation of 
a million dollars from the Public Treasury voted by Congress and 
sanctioned by the President under the wisest safe-guards attainable, 
and for this we ask you to petition. Let it be the voice of the . 
people. Before another year is spent we want to hear the echoes of 
this appeal from every quarter of the country; we want to reverse the 
apothegm of Berkley, and say as by this signal of African regenera- 
tion, " Hail all Nations!" — "Eastward the star of Empire takes its 
course :" 

As well stated in the last Annual Report of the Society, " The 
lesson taught by all experience is this : That the interior 
of Africa can be reached and the coast can be effectively 
occupied for commerciajr aud colonization purposes but in 
one way, and that is through colonies of civilized Negroes, for only 
they can colonize equatorial Africa and live. But England, France 
and Germany have no means of securing such colonists. England 
cannot oflfer inducements to Negroes in the West Indies to go and' 
build up the waste places of their father-iand. Such an exoduS' 
would in a few years depopulate the West Indies and reduce some of 
the wealthiest of those Islands to a poverty-stricken wilderness. She 
cannot send recaptured Africans from her colonies at Sierra Leone, 
Gambia or Lagos. They have not enough civilization in its relations 
to commerce and the industrial arts. France cannot depopulate 
Gaudaloupe or Martinique to furnish Negroes to the interior of Sene- 
gal or Goree. Germany has no colonies of civilized Negroes from 
which to draw emigrants for her African projects. The only man then 
available for the great work of opening Africa to commerce and civil- 
ization is the Negro of America. He can live there, for it is the habi- 
tat of his race, and being fully civilized and Christian too, he is the 
agent, and the only agent that the world contains adapted to this 
purpose. He has proved his adaptation and efficiency in the work 
thus far accomplished by the Republic of Liberia. 

"It is stated that the British Government have expended immense 
sums to keep the peace and to promote trade along the route be- 
tween Segoand Sierra Leone. But the principle of the Liberia estab- 



i6 

lishment has done more and will do more to keep the peace and pro- 
mote trade than all the wealth of England, without colonists, can do. 
"Now the American Colonization Society is the only organized agency 
for developing this important influence, and transferring to this vast 
and productive field the only agents that can profitably cukivate it. 
The amalgamation of civilized agencies with the indigenous elements 
is the only statesmanlike and effective mode of solving the prob- 
lem of African civilization, and the only agencies available for such 
amalgamation are in the United States- " 

And I may add, they can be sent without injury to any home in- 
terest, whatsoever, and they are ready and anxious to go ! Ten thous- 
and of the very best ought to occupy that south-eastern part of Li- 
beria in the next two years. It will cost a million dollars, ^yhere is 
this million ? Just yonder in the vaults of the treasury of the United 
States. 

Why should not this Government come to the rescue now } If 
ever there was a debt from one people to another this country owes it 
to the African race. Every consideration of philanthropy, of patriot- 
ism and of piety combines to confirm the obligation. 

While it is not claimed that Liberia has ever been the ward oi 
our Government in any substantial sense, Vet its kind offices and its 
money have been expended in a spirit of friendliness and national 
comity which entitle it beheld as "the next friend " of that infant 
nation. The Presidents Jefferson, Madison and Monroe took a spec- 
ial interest in the destiny of the free people of color in this country. 
During the administration of JefTerson and while Monroe was Gov- 
ernor of Virginia, emancipation and subsequent provision for the 
Negroes occupied the attention of all Southern statesmen. 

When afterwards Monroe became President, by his enlightened 
interpretation of the act of March 3d, 1819, providing for the return 
of re-captured Negroes to Africa, he furnished the means by which 
the work of this Society was practically commenced. By his direc- 
tion the Navy Department chartered the ship " Elizabeth " giving 
passage to 86 Negroes. These were " the pilgrim fathers " of Liberia. 
They were attended by a war vessel and sailed from New York Feb. 
5, 1820, just 200 years from the landing of the May Flower at Ply- 
mouth Rock. 

Cape Mesurado on which stands Monrovia, the capital of the 
Republic, was purchased from the natives December 15 1821, largely 
by the individual persistence and intrepidity of Commodore Robert 
F. Stockton, who was sent to explore and select a point for the colon- 
ists, and since that day the United States Government has made Li- 
beria the asylum for nearly six thousand re-captured Africans. 



»7 

Our Government concluded a treaty with Liberia, Oct. 21, 1862 
Article 8 of that treaty is as fellows: "The United States Govern- 
ment engages not to interfere, unless solicited by the Government of 
Liberia, in the afifairs between the original inhabitants and the Gov- 
ernment of the Republic of Liberia, in the jurisdiction and territories 
of the Republic. Should any U. S. citizen suffer loss, in person or 
property, from violence by the aboriginal inhabitants, and the gov- 
ernment of the Republic of Liberia hould not be able to bring the 
aggressors to justice, the U. S. Government engages, a requisition 
having first been made therefor by the Liberian Government, to lend 
such aid as may be required." 

How is this for an "entangling alliance !" The Government of 
the United States has frequently expressed more than a mere inter- 
est — memorably in dispatches from the Department of State by Sec- 
retary Upshur in 1843, and more recently by Secretary Evarts in 1879 
and by Secretary Frelinghuysen in 1882. More than once has the 
Navy Department responded to the request of this Society by send- 
ing Government vessels with distinguished officers to the coast of 
Africa with friendly designs. 

The first message of President Cleveland devotes a well con- 
sidered paragraph to these great interests in Africa, and we are fain 
to think from the nature of the man and those he has called around 
him, that both he and h s Cabinet would be favorably disposed to- 
ward any legislation by Congress which should be with proper safe- 
guards and conditions framed for the purpose of aiding emigration to 
the sister Republic. 

Can there be any question if Congress were so disposed, as to the 
constitutionality of an appropriation .f" While millions are voted for 
expositions, for subsidies, for school purposes, for internal improve- 
ments, for unnumbered charities, for disasters by fire and flood and 
famine — while the resources of the country are overflowing, — while 
thousands upon thousands of colored people are anxiously praying 
for the means of exodus, what possible objection can there be to 
such an act of magnanimity? 

At this moment of all others does it not become us to strengthen 
the hands of the intant nation? Liberia has recently been cited by 
international lawyers to prove that communities founded by private 
persons for industrial and commercial purposes may in the course of 
time assume sovereign rights. 

We have reached a point where nothing will answer but to go 
forward. If this Society would vindicate its right to be in the future 
there must be placed before it a new and larger purpose, more faith 
and more energy. Let steps be taken at once to prepare the public 



mind and Congress and the entire Government for an onward move- 
ment of emigration. Let some adequate plan of action be adopted 
to bring before the two Houses the question of a generous appropri- 
ation. It was the opinion of Mr. Webster, the greatest constitutional 
lawyer on the American roll of fame, publicly and clearly expressed, 
that such an appropriation would be legitimate. 

In the proceedings of the Society at its annual meeting of 1852, 
a powerful plea was made by the Hon. Frederick P. Stanton, of Tenn., 
for the favor and encouragement of the Government in behalf of the 
work of this Society. President Fillmore and his Secretary of State, 
Mr. Webster, were both present. At that meeting Mr. Webster pre- 
sided and in the speech which he made on that occasion, he used this 
language: 

"It appears to me that this emigration is nofimpracticable. What is it to the 
great resources of this country to send out 100,000 persons a year to Africa ? In 
my opinion without any violation of the analogies which we have followed in other 
cases, in pursuance of our commercial regulations upon the same principles as have 
already been stated by the Hon. gentleman from Tenn., who has addressed the 
meeting, it is within our constitution — it is within the powers and provisions of 
that constitution as part of our commercial arrangements, just as we enter into 
treaties and pass laws for the suppression of the slave-trade." 

With many such like words did this great man testify to his 
convictions, and subsequently when President Lincoln was brought 
face to face with the question of Negro destiny in this country, he 
did not hesitate to say that to solve this problem the money of the 
treasury of the United States should be brought into requisition. In 
pursuance of his recommendation. Congress took action looking to 
the colonization of the Negroes of this country, and a large sum of 
money was appropriated in this behalf. Propositions were made to 
secure some region south of the United States on the American 
continent — for in that day Liberian colonization was not so popular 
as it promises yet to become, and so in a singularly providential 
manner, the whole project came to nothing. But it serves to show 
both what was thought of the legitimacy of such appropriations, and 
how also the best laid schemes are delayed or diverted to give place 
to the sovereign will of God. 

The cry of the desolate is ringing in our ears. From every sec- 
tion of the country where these people are to be found we hear the 
voice of the exodus. A great home-sickness for Africa has been be- 
gotten in the hearts of multitudes, and every wind bears to our ears 
the pining and the moan. 

We owe it to them. The unrequited servitude of 250 years 
stares at us like a note of hand already long matured. When the 
Hebrew slaves departed from Egypt they went out loaded with the 



19 

gold and jewels of the realm. God sanctioned the deed to give them 
compensation for their toil — and the same Jehovah is to-day upon the 
throne to put down one and raise up another. He will see to it that 
the price is paid. If we now withhold the wages, He will take it from 
this nation in some other way. The balance is in his hand, and His 
word to America is "Pay your debt." He gave the Hebrews favor in the 
eyes of the Egyptians. The same must come to pass for the Negroes- 
There is with the Supreme Ruler no bankrupt law by which we may 
escape. 

Look at the money now being spent on Africa in promotion of 
European designs. The richest exchequers are open for diplomacy, 
for trade, for acquisition. All kinds of tirms and monopolies are pour- 
ing out their treasures in the hope of gain. Two lines comprising 
28 steamships are running from Liverpool to the western coast of 
Africa. France, Germany, and Portugal have each a monthly line. 
A belt of Christian missions already engirds the Continent, and the 
videttes of the grand army of the Church of Christ have even now 
reached the lake region, the banks of the Zambesi and the Niger and 
the broad basin of the Congo. All this is bemg done at immense ex- 
pense, and the United States in a Governmental capacity stands idly 
looking on with hands in pocket and purse shut, nbt appropriating 
one single dollar to forward the cause of emigration or in proof of 
the claim and the favor of standing before the nations as the "next 
friend" of the young Republic. 

The unrest of the colored people here, and their eagerness to 
reach the fatherland, has begun to kindle the keenest interest all 
along the coast of Africa, both in and beyond Liberia, and an earnest 
desire prevails to welcome back the children of their fathers. 

We have come to a crisis ! The land ought to be shaken from 
centre to circumference on this question. Let the better genius of 
the Press, that mightiest engine of modern civilization, take up the 
subject. Let the American Church speak out. Let the massive and 
ever augmenting cohorts of Methodism, whose camp-fires glow in 
every nation under heaven, and whose mighty tread is as the angel 
of God beneath whose feet the rock-ribbed earth is trembling — let 
the solid army of the Baptists, whose ranks are thick with Converts 
standing for the defence of the common faith of Israel— let the Epis- 
copalians, whose banners stream upon the rejoicing air and whose 
altar-fires grow beautiful in the great dawn of the advancing day — let 
the Presbyterians, the sons of French Huguenots, of Scotch Cove- 
nanters, and of Irish Ulster men-mailed with iron shield and stalwart 
in the heat of battle as the gray crags of Switzerland — let the Con- 
gregationalists, whose pilgrim fathers colonized New England's shores 



and made the coast one line of freedom's glorious light — in the midst 
of which their Boston stands to-day— outshining Athens as Christ 
outshone the Socrates of old— let the Lutheran, whose name recalls 
the Reformation and makes us hear again the unfettered voice of 
that intrepid monk who shook the Papal world — let the fervent 
Quaker, whose illustrious pioneer brought hither the benignant spirit 
of his Order, and gave title to the "Key-Stone State" and perpetuated 
his piety in the very nan:e of her magnificent city — let the sectary 
of every name, Protestant and Romish, join hands to- 
gether to solicit this grand subsidy of national benificence. We 
are paying now at the rate of $18,000 for a Congressional funeral. 
Let the flood-gates of petition be opened upon Congress, and from 
every class and from every corner roll in upon that Body a volume of 
supplication. Man's extremity is God's opportunity! On this matter 
likewise the maxim will be true to the letter in the ears of Congress. 
— "The voice of the people is the voice of God !" 

At Waterloo the flails of Napoleon fell heavily and long on the 
hollow squares of Welhngton. "Hard pounding this, gentlemen !" he 
eried, "but we must pound the longest." At last the moment came 
and the voice rang like a trumpet in every soldier's fiber, "up guards 
and at them !" That was the final order— the herald cry of victory ! 
Too long has silence reigned in the camp of this American philan- 
thropy. Too long have the friends of Liberia withheld their last 
appeal. The hour is come when we must win success with our own 
nation and demonstrate in a way we have never done before that 
this Republic is indeed "the next friend" of that over yonder, rising 
as the day-star of African regeneration, and that we are glad and 
proud of this relationship. 

No misgivings— no tremblings— no waverings now! The world 
is beginning to acknowledge the spirit and methods of this Society 
and to vindicate by overwhelming testimony the practical wisdom 
in which it had its origin. If ever in our times the guiding hand of 
Omnipotence is visible in human affairs, it has been in the labors and 
results of the American Colonization Society. 

I will end therefore as I began — heavy doors on the smallest 
hinges ! If on that night in the church in Georgetown, dimly lighted 
with tallow candles, where Francis S. Key, author of the "Star 
Spangled Banner," was pleading with silver tongue the cause of col- 
onization, no one could have foretold the transcendent results which 
have since transpired before our eyes, who shall say that from this 
very altar around which we gather on this occasion, a flood-tide may 
not spring which shall roll to the remotest limit of the Republic and 
rouse a mighty people as with the hand of one man to a new and 



21 

grander benificence and to exertions that shall never cease till 
all the soil of Africa a song responsive to our own shall swell. 
And the flag of the stripes and the white star shall wave 
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave ! 



54 W 



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